-Zoey’s POV-
What a colorful cast of characters I found myself surrounded by. I couldn’t have picked out a better lineup even if I tried.
That morning was, despite my excruciating hangover headache, almost unusually cheery for an autumn day. The leaves that should have been browning by now still held onto their green as if clinging desperately to the vibrancy of summer. The birds were still as chipper as ever, singing their sweet songs out loud as if beckoning us society-dwellers to forget about our ails.
And then, there was the group of us. A bunch of high school seniors involved in some petty drama over a series of failed romances. Though, it feels a bit discomforting to refer to it as such when I’m clearly at the focal point of it all.
While my and Tristan’s little trick yesterday had bought us some time, it was inevitable that Ben would, through the mechanism of his own obsession, come to discover that it was all a ruse. Indeed. Naomi had approached him at lunch with ulterior motives, yes, but they weren’t for the reasons Tristan mentioned yesterday. That is, they weren’t related to Gwen’s own obsession with him. And as evidence of that, both Ben and Naomi were present at this impromptu meeting. Naomi stood next to me with a curious expression on her face. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had no idea why Ben called her out here.
In addition to them, Gwen was laid back against the wall of the school, smoking a cigarette with such poise that you’d think she were a veteran smoker of 20 years. A few feet away from her, scouting around the corner to make sure that no teachers were approaching was Lawrence Young. His presence reassured me that things wouldn’t go terribly wrong here since, thankfully, I still had my hold on him. Our fates were tied due to how involved we are in each other’s secrets, so should he allow anything to go badly for me, it could very easily come back to bite him. I wondered if either of these two would ever suspect that the Law had been compromised from the get-go.
I should note that the day before homecoming at Deer Valley high is usually hat day. All five of us were in the middle of celebrating this strange school custom by wearing all different sorts of hats. Ben and Gwen were both wearing brown cowboy hats that looked like they were pulled straight out of a Clint Eastwood film, Lawrence was wearing an Atlanta Braves baseball cap, Naomi had on a visor, and I was wearing a French Beret. I thought that Ben and Gwen matching was a cute coincidence, but I decided against mentioning it since it would only make this whole thing more painful than it already was.
“So like, what’s going on here? Is this like an illuminati meeting for popular kids? Am I being invited?” Naomi’s curiosity got the better of her, and she finally asked.
“No, it’s an illuminati meeting for heartbroken narcissists with zero self-awareness. Isn’t that right, Gwen?”
She glared at me for my offhanded remark, but was immediately pacified by Ben who stuck his hand out to silence her. “No.” He smiled at Naomi. “Nothing like that. In fact, I’m impressed that you’re still playing dumb this late into the game.”
“Oh Benny Ben, don’t be like that. I’ve never played dumb in my life. I really have no idea what all of this could be about, you know?”
He chuckled. “It’s about you and Tristan trying to break me and Zoey up on Tuesday. Remember? You came out of nowhere and started talking to me, and while I was distracted, your disgusting friend went up and spoke to Zoey.”
The way Benjamin spoke about Tristan revealed a lot about not only his attitude towards him, but also how much of a perceived threat he was. Of course, he should have no idea about “Dream Paralysis” or anything of the sort. The only hacks Tristan should have carried out were the three on me, the one on my mom, and the one on the phone thief. Ben’s obsession, therefore, had to do with me and me alone.
Naomi scratched her head and looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“Well, yeah, I distracted you? Do you think a psycho like you would let another guy talk to your girlfriend?” Her straightforwardness caused me to let out a chuckle, which only increased the intensity of Benjamin’s annoyed expression.
“What, you think this is funny?”
“Yes, I think you’re an amusing person, Benjamin. This interrogation you’re putting Naomi through right now is almost exactly like what Gwen put me through on Tuesday. Did you ask your friend Lawrence over there about it yet? I think that you and Gwen might be more of a match than you think.”
Gwen glared at me for a moment, then looked away and took another drag of her cigarette, probably not wanting to get on Ben’s bad side.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve already spoken to her about that. But here’s the thing.” He turned to Naomi. “Tristan lied about why this girl started talking to me. He said that Gwen put her up to it, right? But now, both Gwen and Naomi here are saying that it isn’t true. So what’s really going on here?”
“Why don’t you bring Tristan over here and ask him then?” I asked.
“Well, that’s the thing. No one’s seen him today. I put out some feelers earlier, but nothing’s come back to me yet, so I have no choice but to make do with what I can.”
My eyes shifted back to Naomi. If we were to assume that she and Lance both wanted to help Tristan, then they had probably already gotten him hidden somewhere before Benjamin or his goons could find him.
At least, that was the assumption I was operating under at the time.
Ben shouldn’t know that I was aware of what had happened yesterday between him and Tristan. But thanks to both Lawrence and Tristan himself, I had a fairly good idea of what their side of the board was up to. Which meant that I should do my best to ease things up from the middle.
“Okay, I’ll ask a different question then. Why won’t you just believe me when I tell you why I broke up with you?”
“Because people don’t just change their minds like that. Someone had to have gotten into your head.”
“Yeah? You think so? It absolutely had to have been someone whispering to me like the devil? It couldn’t have been that I just wasn’t interested in a relationship with you after trying it out for a day?”
“Yeah but, it was only a day.”
“A day, sure. After you blew my texts up for weeks begging me to go out with you.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“So you’re saying I pressured you into it then?”
“Don’t act surprised now. Everyone here already knows how you deal with women who don’t do as you say.”
Of course, the two people who appeared the most surprised at me bringing it up were Ben and Gwen themselves. Benjamin bit his lip in frustration before he could say anything. It was the first time he’d shown any form of hesitation since showing up. But Gwen on the other hand, looked like she had had enough.
“Don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about.”
“What, you think I want to be here? If it weren’t for how obsessively you cling to this guy, maybe he wouldn’t think that it’s okay to go ahead and do it to other people. You’re honestly made for each other. And that’s fine, it’s even kind of cute. If you want to date this guy and get the snot beat out of you again, then be my guest Gwen, just leave me out of it.”
“You fucking bitch!”
Gwen started walking toward me with so much anger in her steps that I figured things were going to get violent. However, before she could get close, both Benjamin and Lawrence stepped in to block her. Naomi, standing with a hand on her hip, could only whistle in awe.
“Get the fuck out of my way! She deserves to get her shit kicked in! She doesn’t know shit about you, Ben. Why are you wasting so much energy over someone like her? Why?!”
Gwen made another attempt to rush me, but was held back by Benjamin.
“It’s fine, Gwen. I deserve this. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“But…”
Though she appeared to be about as obsessed as Benjamin, it seemed to be simple enough to be calmed down by the man in question. I guess that with people like that, the carrot is preferable to the stick in the short term. Realistically though, there’s no way that a relationship like that is going to end well. I decided that Benjamin should look into breaking it off completely instead of dangling himself around in front of her.
But the more immediate question was, what about my clean break? I couldn’t help but wonder what method I should take to get Benjamin off my back. A number of thoughts and ideas swirled through my head. But before I could come up with anything, Naomi spoke up.
“So like, can I leave now? I wanna go back to bothering Lance already.”
Her words provoked a sinister glare from Benjamin, which in turn caused her to frown with a hint of annoyance.
“Benjamin,” I said. “You can’t just keep the two of us here like this. You realize how bad this looks for all three of you? We don’t want anything to do with you anymore.”
“Yeah? Sure then. You can leave if you want. But I’m going to be talking to Tristan next. And you’d better hope he has nothing to say about this.”
As I thought, it wasn’t going to end quietly. It was clear that Tristan and I weren’t on speaking terms anymore after everything that happened, so I couldn’t just tell him how to get out of this. Even on the off chance that Tristan somehow managed to not give him anything, I doubt that Benjamin would just let it end peacefully.
Such thoughts led me to the only reasonable solution that wouldn’t shake the boat as much.
“How about this then? I’ll go out with you again. For a month this time, starting at the homecoming dance.”
“Huh?” Both Gwen and Ben looked at me with flabbergasted expressions.
“But only if you guys win the homecoming game. If you lose, then you have to drop this. Forever.”
I turned to face Lawrence, who should have been happier about this than anyone. The drama would end, and Benjamin would be focused on the game. It was his queue to wrap this up so that we could all get on with our lives. He appeared suspicious of my motives, but he spoke up when he noticed my glance.
“Well, isn’t that something, Ben? All we have to do is play a good game tomorrow and it’ll all work out.” Placing his arm over Benjamin’s shoulder, he took advantage of the situation.
Ben himself was still frozen. His shocked expression told me everything he thought about the proposal he was given. It was almost like the victory was so guaranteed that he couldn’t believe that I would just give myself up like that.
“No takebacks, got it? One month for me to prove myself to you.”
“That’s the deal, yes.” I extended my hand in a gesture of good faith. His expression was cloudy, but he seemed to resolve himself after staring down at my hand then back at me, and shook it firmly.
Gwen bit her lip and ran off the second the shake was done. “Hey! Goddammit...” Lawrence chased after her from behind.
Benjamin grinned, completely ignoring the two who had just left out of dissatisfaction with our agreement, and let go of my hand. “I look forward to dancing with you at homecoming. I can’t wait to see what kind of dress you’ll wear.”
“You sure you’re not gonna crumble under the pressure?”
“I can’t believe someone who’s been to our games would ever say something like that. Isn’t this bet like, a guaranteed loss for you? Aren’t you just too embarrassed to admit that breaking up with me was a mistake?”
“If that’s how you’re choosing to look at it then go ahead.”
He slung his backpack over his shoulders with a smile then walked off back to the front of the school. With the three of them gone, the only people left were Naomi and myself. I could have just gone along my way and started preparing for classes, but I decided that it might have been a good idea to get on her good side.
“Oh Naomi, would it be cool if the photography club swung by volleyball practice next week? We haven’t done it this quarter,” I asked.
Naomi, who stayed behind and suspiciously eyed me, paused. Almost as if she hadn’t heard my question at all. I thought about asking it again, but she eventually spoke up.
“Do you like Tristan?”
“Huh?”
The question came out of left field. I genuinely hadn’t expected it at all.
“What do you mean by that? I’ve barely ever spoken to him.”
“Yeah, but you just saved him, right? If you hadn’t made that bet, then Ben would probably spend the entire day searching for him.”
I maintained a neutral expression, but the truth is, I wanted to scream in frustration. One mind hack and everything I had built began crumbling like a sandcastle against the tides. Benjamin was on a rampage, Gwen hated my guts even more than before, I began relying more on my connection with Lawrence than I wanted to, and the people adjacent to these three would probably begin having their own opinions about all of this too. And then, we have Tristan’s friends forming their own opinions about everything.
This all would have been fine and dandy if Tristan began working with me. I would easily sacrifice everything I’d built for Dream Paralysis. But I underestimated how much he valued his own sense of morality.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t hate him. He’s a nice person. But then what, are you implying that I would date someone that I absolutely despise just to save Tristan?”
“I’m like, 90% sure that you did.”
“Then you’re 90% wrong.”
“Okay, let’s assume that you’re not lying then. Maybe you aren’t doing this to save him. But I know for a fact that at lunch on Tuesday, you two didn’t talk about a history paper. I was involved in the whole thing, if you remember. I don’t know what the two of you spoke about, but whatever it was, it derailed your school life into what it is now. Your freedom from Benny Ben hinges on a homecoming game of all things. Even ignoring the fact that it’s a home game so we have the advantage as is, our school is way stronger than the Otters. Face it, you’ve been forced into an awful situation because of him. I think that you’d have to be a saint to not hate him even a little bit after that.”
“That would be true if I didn’t get myself into this mess in the first place by dating him.”
“And that, why did you date him if you were going to break up with him anyway?”
“You’re awfully interested in my personal life.”
“I just want some kind of confirmation that you’re not messing with Tristan.”
“Okay, sure. I promise you that I’m not messing with Tristan. Him and I don’t have any kind of relationship. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if we never spoke again. And just to reiterate since we’re on the topic, he didn’t convince me to break up with Benjamin. Is that good enough?”
“Sure, that’s fine. But if I find out anything to the contrary, I will burn you to the ground.”
Her eyes contained none of the unhinged, obsessive anger that Gwen or Benjamin’s did. Instead, what I sensed from her was conviction. Like a mother bear protecting her cub from a perceived threat. A necessary deterrent to protect her own peaceful times. But it only intrigued me.
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why? What’s your relationship with him? Do you like Tristan?”
“He’s fun to talk to, but I’m doing this for Lance. Lance likes Tristan, and I like Lance.”
“Oh, I see.”
Seemingly satisfied with where our conversation ended, she followed the steps of the previous three and walked off toward the front of the school building.
And with that, all the pieces were finally put into place.
If I took my hands off the steering wheel, nothing would change. Things would go exactly according to my calculations. Why is that? Because I’ve been watching all these people for the past three years.
I could fail here. I could completely blow up this perfect empire that I’ve set up for myself over a simple gamble. But I don’t think I’m wrong. I don’t think I’m wrong because I understand them all better than they understand themselves. The only person I don’t fully understand is Tristan. So if there’s any chance of this failing, it would be with him.
So, will you help me? Or will you let me fall? Tell me, what will you do, Tristan?